


monstrum

by Ser_Renity



Series: Ace!Grimmjow [3]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Grimmjow, Asexuality, Hurt/Comfort, Ichigo POV, M/M, POV Second Person, Self Confidence Issues, So people are telling Ichigo why grimmjow and him are not meant to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 22:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5351216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ser_Renity/pseuds/Ser_Renity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You could do so much better.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	monstrum

**Author's Note:**

> About time I wrote another fic where I explicitly state Grimmjow is asexual. I mean, seriously, to me he almost always (with the exception of like 2 out of 80 fics) is, but I dont like putting it in that category unless I say it outright in the fic. Representation and all. Love me some asexual Grimmjow.

* * *

 

 

“This isn’t meant to last.”

 

* * *

 

 

They meant well whenever they said that, meant to keep you safe and out of harm’s way. It grew old, though, when they used every opportunity to pull you aside and look at you with those worried eyes and the corners of their mouths pointed downward. It was not pity, exactly, what they supplied you with was concern. Had those doubts not existed in your mind way before they voiced them you would have feared being shaken to the core.

  
But by chipping away at defenses and talking, always talking, you had learned how to hope and trust and understand.

 

* * *

 

 

“He is just using you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Grimmjow showed up on a rainy night one month after the Quincy were defeated. Soul Society was still in disarray, all your friends recovered from the fights and the losses you had suffered.

  
You wouldn’t have made it out had it not been for those who had accompanied you into the Wandenreich’s domain. The rest was luck; incredible amounts of luck and one step taken in the right direction by accident.

  
You reclined on your bed and lazed the day away, listening to the raindrops on wet cement.

  
It was something you liked to do now and then: forget about the fact that time existed and wallow in that sense of bittersweet freedom for a while. Even after all this time the rain still unsettled you; and you were not sure that would ever change.

  
Now it was quiet and warm and glistening like tiny stars on your window.

  
The door bell chimed downstairs, but you were tired and lazy and didn’t expect any visitors.

  
“You get it,” you called it to your sisters. They were in their room playing some kind of board game that you pretended to hate because you always seemed to win even if you tried to lose for Yuzu.

  
As you rolled onto your front you could hear muffled angry voices and then the sound of small bare feet running down the stairs.

  
Your father was downstairs so you didn’t worry too much; even if it was a trap he would just pulverize the enemy with Engetsu. Perks of having a former captain as your father, you supposed.

  
The house was quiet after that, the comforting pulse of your family’s reiatsu all around. You sighed into your pillow and contemplated if the stack of homework assignment sheets on your desk was worth getting up for.

  
Right as you decided to bury yourself in the blankets and return to the reports another day there were footsteps on the stairs again.

  
Later you remembered thinking _What a short visit_.

  
A knock on your door startled you.

  
“What?” you grumbled and rolled over onto your back to at least look less miserable.

  
Yuzu peeked into your room, barely opening the door.

  
“What is it?” you asked.

  
“There’s someone for you at the door,” she replied and sounded confused.

  
You groaned and got up slowly.

  
“Who is it?”

  
You were not hiding your irritation very well as you shuffled to the door, hands stuffed in your pockets. What you expected was a simple answer, a name, something like “Sado who decided to drop by”.

  
“I don’t know, he only talked to Karin,” Yuzu answered and shifted from one foot to the other.

  
You lifted your eyebrows.

  
“Why?”

  
“Because he’s a spirit,” she said and looked away, “Please bring a towel as well.”

  
You were dumbfounded as you went down the stairs, slowly and with a mind full of questions. They didn’t stay unanswered for very long.

  
“It’s okay, he’ll be right there, just stay put,” you heard Karin say and she walked out of the hallway and immediately noticed you.

  
“What’s going on?” you asked and tried to be quiet.

  
Karin just shrugged and gestured behind herself.

  
Even if you were not quite sure how to deal with the situation you took a step forward, looked around the corner and froze.

  
“Yo, Kurosaki,” Grimmjow said and his lips twitched.

  
You stared at him for a while before you even realized you were expected to answer in some way.

  
Grimmjow didn’t look any different from the last time you had seen him; still those dark clothes beneath a white jacket, still that ridiculous hair and those markings that showed he was not human. There were also his scars and the weird look in his eyes and-

  
He was completely drenched from head to toe, his clothes sticking to his skin. Small droplets of water dripped from his sleeves and left puddles on the wooden floor.

  
You looked him up and down, from those heavy boots up the tangled mess of blue strands that hung into his face now.

  
And before you even managed to ask what was going on you started to laugh, one of those spouts of laughter that didn’t end and just grew more intense over time.

  
You could see the look on his face that combined indignation, confusion and something more vulnerable.

  
Grimmjow flinched as you pressed the towel into his hands, still shaking with laughter and trying in vain to calm down.

  
“I expected anything,” you wheezed, “Just not you and here I am staring for half an hour with a stupid purple towel in my hand.”

  
“What?”

  
“Like, what are the odds?” you asked and grinned at him, “No guts, no corpses, not even a little poison?”

  
You watched as his confusion slowly morphed into something like grudging amusement, until he had to suppress his grin, too, his eyes averted and the towel still clutched to his chest.

  
“You gonna-?” you asked and gestured towards it.

  
Grimmjow lifted it up as if to inspect it, find a name, assign a purpose. It only occurred to you then he might not even remember what it was he was holding.

  
Before he could protest you had taken it from him, thrown it over his head and started to rub his hair dry, gentle stroke after stroke.

  
Grimmjow looked at you from beneath its edge, slightly miffed but not yet hostile.

  
“How do you know I am not here to kill ya?” he asked quietly, gauging your reaction carefully.

  
“You wouldn’t have come to the front door,” you replied and it was that simple to you, that easy, “And I’ve fought you four times now, do you really think I don’t know when you’re in destruction-mode? You basically ooze murderous intent.”

  
“Don’t say _ooze_ ,” Grimmjow muttered under his breath and let you finish drying his hair. The strands were soft against your fingertips and he smelled like rain and the wooden floorboards of your hallway.

  
Soon you were done and pulled the towel from him, leaving his hair tussled and hanging down limply. He looked human and you hated every part of it, the warmth it spread inside of you and the urge to keep him like this. Content, calm, docile.

  
“Then what are you here for?” you asked and watched how the dim light flickered across his scar tissue, the rough patches of skin that never fully healed.

  
Grimmjow looked at you and grinned after a while, his teeth still as sharp and threatening as before. It didn’t surprise you that even his mask parted, glowered, prepared to pounce and kill.

  
“Business,” he said and laughed as you lifted your eyebrows again, “I’m just here for business.”

 

* * *

 

 

“He’s dangerous.”

 

* * *

 

 

Your dad did not comment on your guest for a while; he preferred to stay out of your way and the shinigami business. So he only stood at the side and watched as you dragged the Hollow upstairs to find dry clothes for him.

  
Grimmjow pulled his wet shirt over his head and exposed his bare back.

  
“6, huh?” Isshin asked and drummed his fingertips on his elbow, arms crossed before his chest.

  
You stood in the doorway of his room, watching the two interact as Grimmjow lifted up some of your dad’s plain clothes and put them on. There was no time for modesty, apparently, because your sisters were around and your father wary of the stranger on his doorstep now that he had time to assess the situation.

  
“Thought you’d comment on the hole in his stomach first,” you mumbled and watched as Grimmjow stretched and yawned.

  
“Sexta Espada in Aizen’s Arrancar army,” he said and grinned as he turned around, “Pleased to meet ya, Kurosaki’s dad.”

  
Isshin almost laughed, you could tell. But even if he liked the attitude, even if he was impressed and willing to give you and him the benefit of the doubt, he was a father first.

  
“Aizen’s gone,” he said.

  
“All locked up and underground,” Grimmjow confirmed and fidgeted just a little, just enough for you to see, “So theoretically it’s Tercera now, if you want to stick to a rank.”

  
“I’d rather not.”

  
“Fine by me,” Grimmjow continued without a hitch, “I’m here to talk to your son, anyway, so-”

  
“No, for now I will be part of this conversation,” your father interrupted him, “If this is about Hueco Mundo, then I need to listen to what you have to say, too.”

 

* * *

 

 

“To him this is a game.”

 

* * *

 

 

Your father left you alone after Grimmjow batted his eyelashes at you and claimed that it was _personal matters_ he wanted to discuss.

  
As soon as you entered your room, however, the Espada’s mood changed from mockingly playful to something more serious.

  
Hueco Mundo was still in ruins, the earth was barren and the spirit particles that should have started to recover were doing so at a very slow rate. The Hollows were not faring any better, so few of them left after the Quincy had taken most of them apart to fuel their own abilities and fill the voids in the rows of their ranks.

  
Grimmjow told you how Nel and Harribel ruled Las Noches as the Primera and Segunda. He didn’t seem to realize how they still clung to titles and things that gave them meaning.

  
What they needed, however, was reassurance that Soul Society would not invade and kill the last of their kind. Arrancar were close to extinction, a species born and exterminated in less than a century.

  
You wanted to promise him impossible things, that stupid stubborn Hollow who had swallowed his pride to ask you for assistance.

  
He didn’t say it outright, didn’t specify how bad things were. It was unnecessary because his presence alone told you they had no other choice.

  
You didn’t ask him why they hadn’t sent Nel in his stead. She was approachable where Grimmjow was reclusive, talked freely where he wrapped the truth in insults and evasion.

  
“I’ll do what I can,” you said and saw he wanted to get up, “It’s still raining outside.”

  
It was a statement and a question at once.

  
He looked at you and the seriousness slowly gave way to the playful mood you had become accustomed to; this was what it had been like towards the end, on your track to the place where Yhwach resided. You pulled each other along, bickered, got under the skin you had scarred before.

  
“And?” Grimmjow asked now and picked at the hem of your dad’s shirt, another nervous gesture. Despite that he did not break eye contact.

  
“And that means you may not want to leave right away,” you said and trailed off, vaguely gesturing towards the window.

  
“I could open a Garganta in here, you know.”

  
“Or you could just, you know, not do that.”

  
That was how it started; Grimmjow sitting on the carpet in your sisters’ room playing their board game and effectively losing, Grimmjow looking at you with something less than the need to kill.

 

* * *

 

 

“He just wants you for sex.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was one of the first things you learned about Grimmjow, the fact that he was asexual and love, platonic or not, was a rare commodity to come across.

  
The next was the extent of the scars being Hollow left on him, those nasty six feelings he’d be caught dead admitting he felt. Fear, solitude, anxiety, affection, hurt, self-deprecation. Grimmjow didn’t talk to you about it often, but you had fought him time and time again and by now you knew what made him tick.

  
So you worried a lot; but so did Grimmjow when he felt like you deserved so much better than him because he was nothing but a vicious creature too hurt by his own anger to love unconditionally.

  
He never said it aloud until he did, one day, pressured by those eyes and whispers and the urge to run inscribed in his spine.

 

* * *

 

 

“You could do so much better.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re so infuriating, god.”

  
“Then why don’t you go find someone else, huh?”

  
“What?”

  
“If you’re so fucking sick of me, then why don’t you go find one of your friends, someone who’s all nice and pretty and never fucking does anything violent?”

  
“I-”

  
“No, really. Why don’t you find someone who is quiet and kind and funny, someone who’d spread their fucking legs for you?”

  
Grimmjow shook, trembled, seethed with rage.

  
“Someone who isn’t,” and he gestured at himself with shaking hands, “This.”

 

* * *

 

 

“He isn’t worth your time.”

 

* * *

 

 

And sometimes you called him gorgeous just because after all this time he still needed to hear it. And you pried his fingers away from bleeding palms and whispered in his ears until he fell asleep, told him he was worth remembering, worth waking up to and maybe, just maybe, the world wasn’t as scary as he thought.

 

* * *

 

 

“He’s a monster.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Well,” you said and shrugged, “Who the fuck cares about that sorta stuff?”

 

* * *

 


End file.
